With Every Great Joy
by OyHumbug
Summary: A mysterious yet, at the same time, familiar young woman brings unexpected joys and unbelievable sorrows to Elizabeth, Jason, and their sons' lives when she gets a job as Elizabeth's art gallery assistant.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: As promised. Here is the first chapter of the second of my two six part holiday ficlets. As this initial post will hopefully reveal, these two tales are completely different in both their plot and their tone... or, at least, I hope they will be. Thanks for reading and enjoy!_

~Charlynn~

**Title**: With Every Great Joy...  
**Rating**: PG-13  
**Disclaimer**: I own neither the characters used in this story nor the show from which they originate. Unfortunately.  
**Summary**: A mysterious yet, at the same time, familiar young woman brings unexpected joys and unbelievable sorrows to Elizabeth, Jason, and their sons' lives when she gets a job as Elizabeth's art gallery assistant.

**With Every Great Joy...  
RTN's 12 Days of Christmas Fan Fiction Challenge 2010**

**Part One**

**Prompt #2: Just because every child can't get his wish that doesn't mean there isn't a Santa Claus.  
_~ Miracle on 34__th__ Street_**

_You need an assistant._

__

You aren't superwoman.

It's alright if you ask for help every once in a while.

If you don't hire someone to help you run your art gallery soon, you're going to go insane.

No, what was going to drive Elizabeth Webber Morgan – it had been so nice to drop that pesky Imogene officially once and for all when she legally changed her name after marrying Jason – crazy was everyone telling her what to do. While she appreciated their concern, while she recognized their advice for what it was – a sign that they cared about her, and while she knew that realistically her gallery had become too successful to be a one woman show any longer, it was hard to let go of that control. That power. For so many years, owning her own gallery and actually making a career out of her love of art had been Elizabeth's dream – an unrealistic one if she would have listened to her family, and, now that she had accomplished what she had set out to do all those years ago when she enrolled in art school, it was still sometimes hard for her to believe her good luck, her success.

This disbelief, if nothing else, had at least made her quite immune to pinching. Her husband hated that. Once upon a time, he had been able to startle her by goosing her when she wasn't paying attention. Although it was only something they did in private – after all, Jason Morgan was not a man who relished making a public spectacle of himself, and she, to a lesser extent, appreciated discretion as well, it was one of those playful tendencies that somehow had managed to become lost between them during the duration of their eight plus years of marriage. But maybe it could be resurrected? Maybe, when she went home that evening, she would sneak up on her husband and, finally for once, return the favor... so to speak. It wasn't like pinching Jason's butt would be a hardship either. After all, her husband had one fine, tight, pinch-able...

A clearing of someone's throat slapped Elizabeth out of her daydreaming revelry, and her runaway thoughts immediately skidded to a halt. "Oh!," she exclaimed, unsure of what to say, what to do, or how exactly to proceed beyond the embarrassing moment. Being so caught off guard made her nervous, so she fidgeted. She shifted in her desk chair, rearranged the papers laid out before her, and tucked several non-existent strands of her mahogany hair behind her burning, flushed ears, her face awash with mortification.

"Am I early," the young woman before her asked, taking the pressure to say something off of Elizabeth's shoulders. Hooking a thumb over her left shoulder, she added, "because, if I am, I can leave and come back later."

"No, no," Elizabeth reassured her, finally gathering control of both her mind and her body, standing up to greet the applicant. Even in her heels and with the younger girl wearing flats, she was shorter than the college student. And a college student she most certainly was. Although the girl was dressed professionally enough for the interview, she still had her messenger bag hanging across her hip, and she noticed that her keys were held on a PCU keychain that could be hung around a student's neck but was, instead, wrapped tightly the girl's right fingers, so tightly the band of fabric was cutting off circulation to the long, thin appendages. The applicant had the hands of a piano player and the height to make Elizabeth feel like a mere child herself, but the desperately clutched keys told her that the younger woman was just as nervous as she was embarrassed, and, with that knowledge, Elizabeth immediately relaxed.

Releasing the tension in her shoulders, she leaned across her desk, holding her hand out for the applicant to shake. "Thanks for coming." The grip which greeted her own was confident yet not crushing and slightly moist but certainly not unpleasant. "I'm Elizabeth Webber Morgan, but you can just call me Elizabeth."

As they both took seats at the same exact time – Elizabeth behind her desk and the younger woman in the chair she positioned across from her for the very purpose of holding interviews that day, the other woman returned, "My name's Joy – Joy Bradley."

Joy Bradley – simple, clean, yet, in its refreshingly unpretentious manner, also memorable. Elizabeth liked her immediately. Because of that reason, she decided to skip the meaningless preliminaries and small talk and find out if the young woman really was a viable candidate for the position of her assistant. "Joy, I'm going to cut right to the chase, okay?" The college student nodded. "Obviously, most of the people that I've interviewed today are art majors. They want to own their own gallery someday. And, while I find that wonderful and I wish them the best of luck, I don't need a version of myself from ten years ago; I need someone who can fill in all the areas where I'm lacking. I hate paperwork - opening the mail, returning correspondence. Those are details to me that, though I know they're important to my business, they just seem tedious and unnecessarily when I'm put in a position where I could either paint a new canvas or get some office work done. So, anyway, my point is this: if you're an art major, I'm not going to hire you."

"I'm a music education major." Elizabeth smirked knowingly, loving how observant she was. It certainly paid to be Jason Morgan's wife, for she had learned well over the years how to study and watch other people, and the knowledge she gained from her silent observation was usually enlightening and more telling than any introductory conversation could ever possibly be. Upon noticing her expression, though, the younger woman asked, "what? Is that going to be a problem?"

"Absolutely not," she attempted to put Joy's mind at ease. "I just... I noticed your hands earlier. I do that, you know – look at people's hands. I think it's just an artist thing... or, at least, I hope so, because otherwise, that probably means I weird. Anyway, your fingers – they're really long and slender, graceful. When I saw them, I guessed that you played the piano."

"I do," Joy replied. "In fact, I'm on a full scholarship because of it."

A full scholarship? Wrinkling her brow in wonder, Elizabeth asked, "then why do you need a full-time job?" Realizing how prying such a question was, she immediately backtracked, "I mean, if you don't _need _to work, why would you want to? You're going to miss out on so many of the typical college experiences, not to mention putting yourself under an unnecessary amount of pressure."

"My mom was a single parent, and she passed away a few months ago. I'm the last of my family. My scholarship is wonderful. It covers my tuition, my room and board, even my books, but, if my friends want me to go to the movies with them, or if I'm craving Ben and Jerry's, or if I actually want to be able to buy my roommate a birthday present next month, then I need a job."

"And why here? Why not waitressing at Kelly's or selling sweaters at Wyndham's?"

"Because I can already pour and serve coffee, and I can already help people shop. Maybe I don't want to own my own gallery someday, but that doesn't mean that I don't enjoy art, and I thought, if I'm going to have a job, I might as well have one where I can actually learn something from the experience."

Elizabeth smiled, liking and appreciating the younger woman's candor. Perhaps she was unconventional, but she didn't care what the student's previous work experience was, how old she was, or if she knew her way around a computer or not. Rather, what mattered to Elizabeth was the fact that Joy _needed _to work, _wanted _to learn, and she was in a position where she could provide her with a job that wouldn't mean just scraping by financially and moving like an automaton while serving the masses their daily cup of joe. It was an alternative she wished someone would have offered her when she was Joy's age.

"I just have one more question for you," she told her young applicant. Pausing for a moment, Elizabeth took a deep breath. What she was about to inquire about was a deal breaker. "How do you feel about kids?"

"Excuse me," Joy asked, obviously caught off guard. "How does that have anything..." Changing her line of thought, she said, "if you're asking me whether or not I plan to have a baby anytime soon or..."

"Oh, no," she interrupted the younger woman. "Nothing like that," Elizabeth reassured, waving off the concern, the tense moment. "I'm just asking because I have two kids – two boys, actually. Cameron's ten, and Jake's seven, and they come here after school for a couple of hours until their Dad can pick them up or we go home together when I close the gallery for the day."

This time, it was the student's turn to blush, her beautiful, flawless café au lait complexion suddenly becoming infused with a rosy warmth. "I... uh... kids, huh," Joy asked, tugging nervously on her right earlobe.

For a second, Elizabeth felt stunned, as though someone had literally punched her in the chest and knocked the wind out of her very lungs. The girl before her was a complete stranger, but, suddenly, it was as though she had known her for years. With just that one hauntingly familiar gesture, something she had seen her husband do a thousand times over the course of their relationship... throughout all its various phases, Joy went from being the college student Elizabeth was planning on hiring to a potential friend, someone that she just knew could be a confidant, someone who was going to special in her life.

"... haven't spent a lot of time around them – around kids."

"I'm sorry," Elizabeth murmured, shaking away her distraction. "I was somewhere else there for a moment. What did you say, hon?"

"Just that, because it has just been only my mom and I for all these years and none of her friends had kids, I've never really spent a lot of time around them. But they seem okay. I mean, I want to be a music teacher, so I better get along with children, right?"

She laughed, standing up. "I'd say that would be a prerequisite. I guess we'll just look at Cam and Jake as your trial run, not that you'll be teaching them how to play the piano. Unfortunately, my boys take after their father when it comes to the arts. His name's Jason, by the way – I'm sure you'll be seeing plenty of him around here, too. Neither of them like to paint, and they certainly wouldn't sit still long enough to play an instrument. It's all soccer, baseball, and karate with my kids."

"Well, maybe you'll have a daughter someday, and she'll take after you," Joy suggested.

Despite the fact that Elizabeth was resigned to her fate and thankful for her two healthy, happy sons, and despite the fact that she did not want to make her soon-to-be new employee feel awkward, she simply couldn't hide her disappointment and sorrow, and she couldn't lie either. "I'm, uh... I can't have any more children. Something... there was a complication when I had Jake, and, so, another child isn't an option for me."

"I'm sorry," Joy rushed to apologize, but Elizabeth held up a hand, stopping her from saying anything else.

"Consider it already forgiven. You had no idea, and what you said was a natural reaction. This way, though, we've gotten that awkward conversation already out of the way. It'll be one less we'll eventually have as employee and employer."

The young student leapt to her feet, grinning widely, her previous pity and mortification forgotten in her effervescent happiness. "I got the job?"

"Just leave your class schedule with me now, and I'll call you back later... or email you, if that'll work better, with your hours." Rounding her desk, Elizabeth held out her hand once more. When she and Joy shook hands the second time, she noticed the pianist's palms were as dry as her own, and she was pleased to realize that, during their brief interview, she had managed to set the girl at ease and relax her nerves. "Welcome to the Webber-Morgan gallery, Joy."

Sincerely, the young woman replied, "there's no place else I'd rather be."


	2. Chapter 2

**Part Two**

**Prompt #4: I Fell down the chimney and landed on a flaming hot goose!**_**  
**____**~ The Muppet Christmas Carol**___

___Ten Months Later, Three Days Before Thanksgiving..._

When Joy heard the tell-tale signs of her employer coming into work, she smiled. In the ten months since she had started as Elizabeth's assistant, she had come to know the perky gallery owner quite well, so well, in fact, that she could discern the older woman's walk from the hundreds of others she heard every day. Maybe it was her musical ability which lent itself to the quirky trait, or perhaps it was simply because her boss meant so much to her, but, whatever the reason, Joy knew the sound of quick yet assured, petite feet encased in flat yet attractive motorcycle boots walking across the wooden floors of the gallery better than she knew a Beethoven symphony or a Verdi opera.

"Sorry, I'm late," Elizabeth breezed into the small office they shared, though Joy actually used it more now that she was the artist's assistant. Her presence in Elizabeth's life allowed the mother of two more time to paint, to meet with new, potential artists, and to better arrange (or obsess over depending upon how you looked at it) the pieces on the show floor. "I hate this town during the holidays," she offered by way of explanation for her tardiness.

But Joy knew that, traffic or no traffic, her boss was merely offering lip service to everyone else's complaint. "Liar," she accused playfully. "You love the holidays, Port Charles, and the chaos the two together bring."

"Alright, you may have a point, but, geez, was it a mad house out there this morning," Elizabeth related. "You know, I thought that going and trying to get all my supplies for Thanksgiving today would alleviate some of the craziness, but I think every other shopper in the entire city felt the same way and took off half a day of work just to monopolize all the parking spots, steal all the marshmallows, and block the aisles so that finishing my grocery shopping was more like finding my way through a complicated obstacle course riddled with landmines."

Joy chuckled. "You do have a talent for the hyperbole."

Good-naturedly, Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "So, what are you up to," she asked, switching gears as she removed the various layers living in upstate New York required during the winter months. And, whether November was technically in the fall or not, outside on that particular day in Port Charles, it was definitely winter already.

"I thought I'd get a jumpstart on the holiday cards you decided to send out this year. Everything, even the last minute VIP certificates we designed, came back from the printers this morning, so I'm just assembling them all, printing out the address labels, and getting everything ready to put in the mail Tuesday morning when we come back from the long weekend."

"Sounds good," her boss replied. Continuing her praise, she added, "you're always so on top of things, Joy. I can't believe I survived as long as I did without you, and I can't believe you're going to graduate in two and half years. It'll be like going back to the Stone Age around here."

"You'll find another assistant," she promised, teasingly. Despite Joy's cool facade, Elizabeth's lamentations made her heart swell with warmth and pride.

Several seconds passed where neither of them said anything, but, instead, her employer simply gazed at her pointedly. This wasn't the first time she and Elizabeth had engaged in this very same discussion, and, without her boss saying anything more, she knew exactly what the look she was receiving meant. It meant that Joy was more than just her assistant, and it meant that, even when she graduated and left the gallery and Elizabeth was forced to hire someone new, that person would not be replacing her in either Elizabeth's life or her heart. However, upon closer inspection, Joy realized there was an additional depth of emotion lurking behind the older woman's dark blue eyes, a sheen of tears barely restrained. Before she could contemplate the fact, though, Elizabeth cleared her throat and changed the subject.

"So, what are we listening to today?"

Startled slightly out of her ruminations, it took Joy a second or two to place the question and then respond. Elizabeth was referring to the music she brought in with her when she worked. Upon the suggestion of her boss, she had started to record herself playing the piano. At first, she just recorded her own versions of the classics, but then she slowly branched into piano arrangements of her favorite modern songs, and, now, upon further encouragement and even some insistent prodding, she was recording her own original work. Elizabeth's idea was that, if her clients were fans of the arts, they would surely appreciate beautiful music while they browsed through beautiful paintings and sculptures, and maybe Joy would be able to get some exposure. After all, her employer had advised, an artist never knew where their big break would someday come from.

"This is just another of my own pieces," she shared, blushing slightly at the admission. Though she had been bringing in her own music for weeks now, it still embarrassed her slightly. Even if she and Elizabeth were the only two people to hear the original works, she was exposing her art, something Joy wasn't used to. In the past, she had either played with her high school's entire band, or, when she would have solos, she would perform orchestra pieces from world renowned composers, the audience seeing Mozart, Wagner, or Chopin when they closed their eyes, not Joy Bradley.

"And...," Elizabeth prompted.

As an artist herself, she never allowed Joy to just explain a new work by claiming it as her own or by providing a title. She liked to hear the explanation behind the inspiration for the piece. And, truth be told, Joy liked telling her. "Remember that set I was working on about the five stages of grief?" Her boss nodded her head immediately, obviously recalling the four previous, extremely moody pieces of composition. "Well, this is the last – acceptance. The set is now complete."

"It's definitely my favorite of the five," Elizabeth shared. "Not that I know much about music or anything, but the other four were just too dark for my taste. This one seems lighter, almost hopeful."

"That's because I think it is." Joy smiled, revealing even more about the piece playing softly in the background and about her own current frame of mind. "It still hurts, losing my mom, but I'm not defined by it anymore. I'm moving forward. I'm allowing myself to feel, to love again. I'm... happy."

And, strangely enough, it was all because of the woman standing before her.

"Speaking of being happy," Elizabeth prompted, "what are your plans for Thanksgiving?"

"Well, I have finals to study for."

"Of course."

"And I want to catch up on my laundry."

"You're too responsible," her boss teased.

"Then there's the fact that it's kind of a silly holiday. I mean, not the part about celebrating what you're thankful for but the whole Pilgrims and Indians being friends mockery of history aspect of it."

"Right," Elizabeth nodded sagely.

"Plus, I really don't like all the traditional Thanksgiving foods, and football is boring for me, so..."

"So, you'll be at my house by ten, right," her employer and friend interrupted, "because, even though the boys won't admit it, they still enjoy watching the parade, and, if you're there, they can pretend they're being gracious and accommodating by sitting down with you while you watch it. And, then, after we eat and Jason, Cam, and Jake pass out in front of the TV because of all the turkey they've consumed, we can get online and plan our Black Friday shopping attack plan."

Joy hesitated. "Elizabeth, I don't know if that's such a good idea. I mean, you know I love spending time with you and your kids, but holidays are for family, and I'm..."

Once more, her words were stymied. "And you're a part of my family now, Joy."

Without really contemplating her actions, the younger woman stood up quickly from the chair she had been sitting in, rushed around her boss' desk, and hugged the small, petite mother of two, holding her tightly. Before that moment, she had known that she was important to Elizabeth, and she had known that she loved her like the second mother she never thought she'd be lucky enough to have, but to find out that she meant just as much to Elizabeth as Elizabeth meant to her was too much for Joy to realize and not react to. However, her delight was short lived, and, in horror, she pulled quickly away from her boss.

Elizabeth's frame was so slight, so compact that even the slightest change in her body was noticeable. Although Joy had been aware of her employer wearing more and more sweaters in the past month, she had just assumed it was because of the crisp weather and not because of some effort to hide something from her. But, as soon as she had hugged the older woman, she had been able to feel exactly what had changed about Elizabeth recently – why she was more emotional, why she was more demonstrative with her feelings, and Joy had a suspicion why she had been late that morning. "You're pregnant."

Immediately, Elizabeth beamed. "You could tell," she asked rhetorically. "Then I really am showing! I thought I was, but then I also thought that it was just wishful thinking on my part, so I dismissed it. I mean, Jason hasn't even noticed yet, but he's a man. Oh, Joy, you have no idea how much I've been wanting to tell you about the baby, but I also didn't want to jinx it until I knew for sure, until I was past the three month mark."

"And are you?"

"Almost," her boss answered. "I'll be three months next week."

With the gleeful admission, Joy felt a wave of hot, red rage wash over her. She was angry at herself for not noticing sooner. After all, the signs had been there for weeks, but she had been too blind to pick up on them. She was mad at Elizabeth, too. Oh, she knew how much her employer wanted to have another baby, how much she wanted to give her husband a daughter to spoil, and embarrass, and protect, but she also knew that a baby really wasn't a feasible option for Elizabeth's battered body. The delivery of her second son had been too complicated, too damaging with both mother and child nearly dying, and the doctor had told her a third pregnancy was out of the question. But, most of all, she was furious with Jason Morgan.

"I have to go," she spit out hastily, grabbing her school bag, purse, and keys from behind the desk. Without glancing at Elizabeth, she skirted past her boss and out of the cramped office, running out of the gallery and never once looking back even when she heard her name being called, even when she heard just how crushed and saddened Elizabeth was by her brusque and even rude dismissal of her announcement, of her elation. Joy promised herself, though, that she would apologize to her friend later, that she would make up for her lack of well-wishes and congratulations after she took care of something first.

But, before she could offer Elizabeth comfort and support, she had someone else she needed to confront.

!

The boys were at school, Elizabeth was at work, and Jason had the morning to himself. Usually, he'd be at work, too, but he wanted to surprise his wife by performing a few odd jobs around the house, things she had been wanting him to do for weeks and things that she would need done in a few days' time to finish her preparation for Thanksgiving dinner. He carried up the extra leaf for the dining room table and added it, he brought up the extra chairs from the basement, he cleaned out the leaves from the gutters, and he was just about ready to start moving the living room furniture around in preparation for the obscenely large Christmas tree they would get for the space when there was a knock at his front door.

Pausing in his tasks, he went to greet whoever it was, figuring it to be an elderly neighbor who had seen him working outside and had a favor to ask of him or the mailman. Instead, though, what or, more accurately, whom he found was a very upset, very irate Joy Bradley. Immediately, his thoughts went to his wife, worry spiking. "What's wrong? Where's Elizabeth?"

"Don't pull that innocent act with me," his wife's assistant challenged, stomping into the entranceway and coming to stand directly before Jason, practically nose to nose. While he had always been aware of the fact that Joy was tall for a woman, he had never noticed before that she was practically the same height as he was. "You know exactly what's wrong, and you know that it's your fault, but did you do anything to prevent it from happening?" The college student snorted disgustedly. "Well, apparently not!"

"If this has something to do with my work...," he suggested warily, still unsure of what exactly Joy was talking about. In fact, the more she talked, the more confused he became. "I really don't think we should be discussing that. Just tell me where my wife is," he demanded, starting to become slightly desperate in his concern.

"Oh, she's at the gallery," the assistant revealed, making Jason sigh in relief, and he took a deep, recuperating breath. "As we speak, she's contentedly working, probably painting, and glowing."

There was obvious emphasis on the final word, but he still had no clue what the young woman was trying to get at, and the fact that she was speaking in circles, using riddles and hints instead of just coming right out and saying exactly what she meant was starting to royally piss him off. Pinching his nose in frustration, Jason demanded, "Joy, if you have something to say to me, just say it already. Otherwise, I'm going to have to ask you to leave. I have things to do, and I don't have time for... whatever game this is."

"She's pregnant," the college student spit out. "While you're here playing Suzy Homemaker, you're wife is killing herself by carrying your child!"

Without notice, his legs suddenly gave out on Jason, and he collapsed. It was several minute later that he realized he was sitting on a bench, but his devastation was so great he couldn't even be thankful for the fact that he landed on the wooden furniture, something Elizabeth had insisted on so the boys could sit and put on and remove their shoes, rather than the floor.

She was pregnant.

Elizabeth was pregnant.

She was carrying a baby that would, in all likelihood, kill her.

No wonder Joy hated him in that moment. Although they weren't close, not the way that Elizabeth and Joy were or even Joy and the boys, the two of them had always respected each other. They had always gotten along in a conciliatory, distanced manner. But, in that moment, he hated himself, too. It didn't matter that he had believed another baby to be a near impossibility, that he had believed Elizabeth to be on birth control just in case. No, all that mattered was that his wife's life was in danger, and he had done absolutely nothing to make sure she was safe, that their family was safe.

Looking back up at the young woman across from him, he realized that she was still yelling, that she was screaming and crying, and that he had missed half of what she had already said. "... and it's going to happen all over again. Because of you, I only had one parent growing up, and my mom worked herself to death in order to provide me with a good life. And, now, because of you, I'm going to lose Elizabeth, too. Do you have any idea what it's like to lose the most important person in your life, then find someone else who is like a mother to you, only to learn that you're going to lose them, too... and all because of the same selfish man?"

"Joy, I don't... I don't understand," he murmured, stumbling through his words, but, in the back of Jason's mind, he did know; he did understand exactly what the assistant was trying to tell him.

"I don't care who you are, what your name is, or what my mother said, but you are not my father," she shrieked at him.

Joy had the prettiest, smoothest café au lait skin. She was tall. She was smart. She was mature and wise beyond her years. Her last name was Bradley... just like her Uncle's first name. Joy was Keesha Ward's daughter; Joy was...

"You're...," Jason started to say, but then the image of a woman bonelessly slipping to the ground froze the next words upon his lips. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as his entire world shattered, splintered, and disintegrated, blood spreading effortlessly upon his home's – Elizabeth's home's – glittering, wooden floors. Despite the fact that his attention was completely arrested in another direction, he was aware of the fact that Joy, too, whirled around to see what he was staring so brokenly at, only to gasp in fright and shock.

Then his wife calmly said, "I love you," the cool acceptance of one aware of their imminent death and prepared to say goodbye burning even more meaning into the always eloquent, momentous words.

And then all hell broke lose.


	3. Chapter 3

**Part Three**

**Prompt #6: It looks like Santa threw up in here.**_**  
**____**~ Grey's Anatomy**___

His daughter was dead.

But that wasn't exactly correct. Rather, his daughter _with Elizabeth_ was dead, and it was killing Jason to have to add such a caveat unto an already heartbreaking statement.

He felt... guilty – as though he had cheated on his wife and conceived a child outside of the sacred bonds of their marriage vows. Oh, Jason was level-headed enough to realize that such thoughts were ridiculous. After all, he had never once even had a fleeting moment of infidelity. He loved his wife more than he loved any other person in the world. He would have done anything for her, sacrificed anything, been anyone. But rational or not, he felt unfaithful.

His children were supposed to all be Elizabeth's. Therefore, such a statement as to whom his daughter's mother was should have been unnecessary. If mentioned, it simply would have been a way to brag about the fact that he was lucky enough to be loved by a woman like Elizabeth Webber. _Elizabeth Webber Morgan_. And, true, Cameron wasn't his biological son, but no one questioned whose Cam's father was. Zander had been too selfish to put the needs of his child before his own desires, mainly Jason's now deceased sister, and Lucky had only offered the little boy lip service – 'yes, I love Cameron, and of course I want to adopt him, but not right now – soon, but not yet... maybe when we have some more money.' All of the cop's promises had been empty, but the first thing Jason had done after marrying Elizabeth was adopt her little boy, and, now, he was the only dad Cameron knew, the only dad the world acknowledged belonging to the ten year old boy.

But, from that day on, when others would think about Jason Morgan's children, they'd think about his sons with Elizabeth... and his daughter with a woman he couldn't even remember loving enough to conceive a child with. It was frustrating. Not that he cared what other people thought of _him_, but he believed such separations of his loyalties, of his responsibilities as a father, were an insult to Elizabeth, their life together, and their children. And he didn't want her. As terrible as it sounded, he didn't want his daughter, refused to even think about her in those terms while Elizabeth was still unconscious.

In a coma.

Or so he told himself, but it was difficult for Jason to separate his wife's struggle for her very life from the announcement that Joy was his child. Within a span of mere seconds, he had learned that Jason Quartermaine had conceived a baby before playing hero and running after his drunk brother only to have his head rammed into a tree and watched his wife suffer an excruciating miscarriage, one that left their daughter dead and the mother of _three_ of his children's life hanging in the balance. Rational or not, the time frame between the two events was a direct correlation in Jason's mind, so he blamed his loss, and grief, and fear upon Joy. If she had only remained quiet, if she had never come into their lives in the first place, then, at that very moment, he and Elizabeth would have been at home together with the boys having dinner. Doing homework. Playing a game he really didn't understand but the kids enjoyed. Making love. Something, something other than waiting for the other shoe to drop and for Elizabeth to slip away from him just like their child, a child he had been unaware of until it was too late, had done just hours before.

Jason didn't blame Keesha for keeping the secret of her daughter – _their_ daughter - from him. In fact, he was grateful. He couldn't imagine what it would have been like to wake up with no memory of his past only to learn that he was going to be a father. His reaction to all of the Quartermaine's expectations had been bad enough, but through a girlfriend with a baby into the mix, and, looking back at his former self, Jason had to wonder if he even would have survived the pressure. No, what he blamed Keesha for was telling Joy about him – about Jason _Morgan_. After all, they were not the same man, and, no matter what Joy might have been told about his injury, there was no way that anyone could prepare themselves for their father not recalling their conception, for their father not having any knowledge of their existence.

So, he wasn't surprised that Joy had eventually found her way into his life, but he resented her timing. He resented Keesha linking him with the man he was before the accident and making him culpable for Jason Quartermaine's mistakes. He resented the way the truth had been revealed. But, most of all, he resented how, of all the people to have to pay the price of his former self's wrongs and misdeeds, it was his family – Cameron, Jake, Elizabeth, and their unnamed, unborn daughter.

As if reading the direction of his thoughts, the person standing behind him in his wife's hospital doorway – a person he hadn't even known was there – said, "I'm sorry... for so much – for showing up in your life, for hurting you, but, most of all, I'm sorry for what I did to Elizabeth."

To even hear his wife's name upon Joy's lips sent a contradictory surge of misery and rage spiraling through Jason's body. It made his hands tremble, his ears burn, and the tight muscles of his jaw twitch with the effort it took to remain perfectly quiet and stoic. His daughter _with Keesha_ had already taken too much from him; he refused to grant her his dignity, the satisfaction of knowing that her actions had hurt him just as much as his unknowing abandonment had tormented and hurt her as a child.

"And I wanted to tell you that, despite everything, I'm grateful for the time I got to spend with your family." The young woman sobbed then, a quick, loud burst of emotion spilling forth before she bottled her remorse, her guilt back up and began again. "I have brothers – these two amazing little boys who mean more to me than you'll ever understand, and, for a few brief months, I had a mother again. Despite what you think of me right now, despite what you feel towards me because... because of everything that happened today, I loved... I love Elizabeth.

"When I lost my mother last year, I never thought I'd find another person to make me feel the way she did – cherished, protected, adored beyond what should be humanly possible, but I was wrong. When Elizabeth hired me, she did more than just give me a job; she gave me a home, and she accepted me into her heart the same way that a long-lost mother would. Sometimes, I thought it was simply because she unconsciously sensed my connection to you, and she loved you so much that anyone who was related to you automatically earned a small portion of her heart, but I know now that Elizabeth loved me because of me, because of the type of woman she was, and, even if I've lost that for forever now because of what I've done, I will always treasure my time with her.

"But I'm leaving," Joy announced, audibly pausing to swallow thickly and take a deep, bracing breath. "I only came to Port Charles because of you, but after... everything that has happened, I feel like leaving is the right thing to do. I don't belong here anymore... if I ever even did." In her next words, Jason could hear the shrug of her shoulders, the young woman's confusion was that strong, that palpable. "I really don't know... anything... anymore." She sniffed. "Would you just... I know that I have absolutely no right to ask anything of you, not after what I did to your family, but would you please tell Elizabeth that I'm sorry... for everything... when she wakes up? And she will wake up, Jason. I promise."

He wanted to tell her that her reassurance, that her word meant nothing to him, but he couldn't bring himself to be so cruel. Whether or not he blamed her for the loss of his daughter _with Elizabeth_ and for Elizabeth's current condition, Joy still was only nineteen, a child practically herself, and he tried to think of what his wife would want him to do or, more precisely, what she wouldn't want him to do, so he remained quiet. Yet, at the same time, he also refused to grant the young woman her request. Instead, he allowed his silence, meaningful in its starkness, to speak for itself, knowing that, if anything had the power to chase Joy away and leave him, once again, alone with his wife, it would be that.

Sure enough, moments later, he heard the hospital room's door close softly and the barest whisper of the words _goodbye..., daddy_ wash over him. While a part of Jason wanted to believe that it was his unborn child speaking to him, acknowledging his love for her which he had only discovered that very same day but would hold in his heart until the moment he took his last breath, the realistic part of the devastated father knew that the haunting words had been murmured by the other daughter he had discovered was his earlier that morning, the daughter he had never wanted, still couldn't completely accept, the daughter he had denied and allowed to walk out of his life for good just seconds before.

Finally, Jason cried.

!

The second time he heard the door open behind him, Jason smiled. Once more, without turning around, he knew exactly who had come to visit Elizabeth, and he was, despite his sorrow and fear at the thought of losing his wife, happy to see them. The second time he heard the door open behind him, Jason turned n his seat beside his wife's bed, opened his arms, and welcomed his children into his embrace. Without waiting for further incentive, both Cameron and Jake ran into their father's arms.

The three Morgan men... boys – it depended upon the situation, the moment, but there in Elizabeth's hospital room, Jason felt as though the three of them were all little boys waiting for the most important person in their life to wake up, the person whom without they couldn't function, couldn't mature, couldn't be the men she made them by believing in them – they simply held each other for several long-stretching minutes, savoring each others nearness and taking strength from one another. Eventually, though, they pulled away, and, simultaneously, all three of them pivoted to look at the beautiful woman next to them who appeared to only be peacefully slumbering away the early evening hours.

"How much, uh...," Jason struggled to start the conversation he knew he had to have with his sons. "How much did Robin tell you about what happened to your mother?"

It was Cameron who answered, acting like the big brother he was and taking charge. "She told us that mom lost a baby and that losing her – it was a girl – made her sick. Now, we have to wait for her to get better enough to wake up."

Before he could respond, Jake asked, "and she will wake up, right, dad?"

And, just like that, Jason was once more at a loss for words. While he knew that he should have reassured his children at any cost, he had always refused to lie to them, and he couldn't break that silent promise to himself even in the face of their desperation to hold onto hope that their mother would be just fine. Finally, he said, "I hope so," and, knowing their father, the boys seemed to instinctively understand everything that he meant by those three simple, ambiguous words.

"Robin also said that we have to go home with her tonight," Cam added, sounding none-too-pleased with the development he was relating. "But Jake and I want to stay at our house, dad. Can't Joy watch us while you stay here with mom?"

"Joy, uh," Jason started only to pause and nervously tug upon his left earlobe. No matter what level of culpability Joy held in what had happened to Elizabeth, he didn't want his children to learn of the exact cause of their mother's condition. While their whole world had been turned upside down with a single day's worth of events, taking away their friend in light of them already losing a sister and having to face the potential loss of their mother just seemed too cruel. So, instead, he simply replied, "she left town for a while." It wasn't a lie; it was the truth. It just lacked a few major details of explanation.

Though both boys seemed slightly surprised by the revelation and of course disappointed, neither of them said a word. Rather, Jake changed the subject. "We brought arts and crafts supplies with us," he said. "Cameron thought that mommy might wake up sooner if we decorated her room for Christmas."

Shrugging and blushing slightly at his own idea, Cam explained, "she just... you know how crazy mom gets around the holidays, dad. She loves them. So, I thought we'd just... remind her that it's almost time for Christmas and that she needs to wake up soon so she doesn't miss anything."

"I think that's a great idea, Cam," he praised his son. Grinning softly while rubbing his hands together, he revealed, "did your mother ever tell you that I was an expert at making paper chains...?"

Beside them, while they worked, Elizabeth – the mother of _three_ of his children, his wife, his entire life – slept on.


	4. Chapter 4

**Part Four**

**Prompt #8: It is Santa! You killed him!  
Did not! And that's not Santa.  
Well, he was...  
**_**~ The Santa Clause**_

"Hmmm...," his wife sighed, stretching leisurely before cringing at the sight of her surroundings. "How long was I asleep for? I didn't miss Christmas, did I?"

Jason wanted to kiss her; he wanted to shake her. Jason wanted to weep with relief; he wanted to scream as though finally waking up from an endless night terror. Jason wanted to laugh at his wife's levity; he wanted to choke the humor right out of her voice. Of all the ways for her to break free from her coma's grasp, Elizabeth did so in such a calm, boring manner, as if it was perfectly natural for her to be stirring from an unconscious state.

Instead of kissing here, though, instead of shaking her, or crying, or screaming, or laughing, or choking the woman he loved, Jason merely reached for her left hand and held it tightly between both of his own, her dainty fingers a familiar, reassuring contrast to his own much larger ones, her wedding rings an unbreakable promise he had been clinging to for almost a week. Everything else – the scratchy sheets beneath their arms, the cold plastic of the wires and tubes marring her perfect skin – he just ignored... or tried to. "You weren't just sleeping, Elizabeth," he eventually responded, meeting her gaze and finding himself unwilling to blink. After all, if he closed his eyes for even just a second, she could fall back into her coma, and he wouldn't even know. He wouldn't be able to do anything to stop it.

"Eh, you say potato; I say potatoe."

"Elizabeth...," he warned her softly, pleadingly. While normally he appreciated her light-hearted sense of humor, he couldn't handle it in that moment. For six days he had lived in a limbo where he wasn't sure he'd ever get to look into her eyes again, where he wasn't sure if he'd ever have the chance to hold his wife again, kiss her, tell her that he loved her. It was too soon to make light of his fear, his worry, and, frankly, Jason wasn't sure he'd ever be able to listen to anyone make jokes about the hell he had just gone through.

She nodded in response, recognizing his request and silently honoring it. Though she looked away from him for a moment, it was just to rid her orbs of her own sudden emotion. When she turned back to him, her lashes were still damp. "I'm serious about Christmas, though," she said, and he could hear the trepidation in her voice. "Jake's at that age where, if anything were to go wrong, he'd lose faith in the idea of Santa and stop believing, and I'm not ready for that yet."

"It's still November," he responded, noting that she relaxed visibly as soon as the reassurance fell from his lips. "You missed Thanksgiving, but the boys were okay with that." Realizing how terrible what he had just said sounded, Jason let go of her hand with his right and tugged self-consciously on his earlobe. "I mean... of course they were sad, and scared, and they missed you, but no permanent damage was done... I think. I didn't try to make the day like everything was normal. We had pizza, and ice cream sundaes, and root beer while watching the football games, but I also didn't want the boys to be upset the whole time either, so we only visited you that night. They're with Monica right now, by the way. I've been trying to spend as much time with you as possible, so a lot of people have been helping to watch the boys – Robin and Patrick, Epiphany, Monica, Spinelli, even Diane stayed a night with them."

He hated the uncertainty in his voice but forgot everything else when Elizabeth lifted his still remaining left hand and placed a tender kiss against his palm. "What you did for Thanksgiving was wonderful," she complimented him. "Just like always. And I know you've done your best for both me and the boys since I've been... unconscious."

"Yeah, well, it didn't feel wonderful," he confessed. "In fact, everything felt like a mess without you. And that's what we need to talk about." At her confused expression, he exhaled roughly, lifting both of his hands to his face to harshly scrub against it. After a moment to gather his thoughts, Jason refocused upon his wife. "Why'd you do it?"

Although it wasn't the most verbose question in the world, they both knew exactly what he was talking about, what he was asking of her. Elizabeth glanced away from him, looking at her lap and fidgeting with the blankets that were pulled up to her chest, the bed already elevated so that she was partially sitting up. He watched as she bit her lip, as she swallowed past what was obviously a rapidly developing lump in her throat, as she stifled her tears. Those would come later... for both of them, but, for now, they needed to talk.

Finally, she half-shrugged her shoulders, her left one lifting while her right stayed stationary, and looked back up at him. "I wanted to give you a little girl."

"Elizabeth...," he sighed. This time, though, when he said her name, he was chastising her. Rather, his heart was breaking... for her, for himself, for _them_.

"I know you never said anything, and you never would have," she rushed on to say, never giving him a chance to properly respond. "But I knew that you wanted a daughter, you deserved to have one, and I _needed_ to be able to give you a little girl. You're this gorgeous, virile man who could have had a dozen children with any other woman, but the one who was supposed to be able to carry your kids – me, your wife, I was broken. I physically _couldn't_ give you a daughter, and that killed me, Jason."

"No, what nearly killed you was not talking to me about this," he argued. Despite his sorrow, despite the pain he was experiencing on his wife's behalf... and on his own, he was also mad at her – mad that she had risked her life for something that, in the grand scheme of their relationship together and their family, really wasn't that important. "Would I have liked to have had a daughter with you? Yes, I won't deny that, Elizabeth, but I only would have wanted a little girl if she was yours as well. It wasn't so much that I would have liked to have had a daughter; I would have liked to have had a daughter _with you_.

"And please don't think that I'm unhappy with our family, that I'm not satisfied with what we already have together. I have you, and I have Cam and Jake, and, honestly, you guys are so much more than I ever thought I'd have, than what I believed I deserved. And, for the record, I wouldn't want a dozen children unless you were their mother. Being a parent with you is what makes being a father so amazing, Elizabeth. Anything else, anyone else, would just feel like a betrayal to you, to what you mean to me, to us."

She wiped several mutinous tears away, salty drops of moisture which had found their way past her determination not to cry, and smiled. "Thank you... for saying that. You always say the most beautiful things to me, Jason, and you were right. I _should have_ talked to you. Honestly, though, I didn't even think it was possible to _get_ pregnant. I just... I stopped taking my birth control on a whim, hoping that we'd get a miracle and I'd become pregnant but certainly not believing that it would actually happen."

And that brought up the second thing he needed to ask her. "Why didn't you tell me... when you found out? Although I noticed the slight bump to your belly and that your... chest was bigger, I just thought you'd had too much of the kids' Halloween candy," Jason admitted sheepishly. "Until...," he started only to stop when he was about to say _her_ name, pause, and then began again. "I had no idea."

Once more, she reached for his hand, wanting to be close to him, and he obliged, curling their fingers together tightly and squeezing in a gesture of support. "I didn't want to get your hopes up until I knew for a fact, and then I was already so close to the three month mark by the time I did get confirmation from my doctor that I decided to just wait until I was through my first trimester. There was no sense in getting you all excited if it turned out to be for nothing."

"But I wouldn't have been excited, Elizabeth," he corrected her, speaking slowly, speaking softly so as not to hurt her. "I would have been scared."

"And maybe that's part of the reason why I didn't tell you as well," she conceded. "I think I knew in the back of my mind that you wouldn't be happy with me for taking such a risk, and I was afraid that you'd be upset. And I think another part of me didn't want to tell you because I was afraid to face the truth, and you wouldn't have allowed me to hide in my dreams and avoid reality."

To gentle his next words, he leaned forward and kissed his tenderly on the forehead. Pulling away but still remaining close to her, he used his free hand to brush her wild curls behind her ear. "I'm not going to lie to you, Elizabeth. I am upset. I'm... mad that you did this to yourself, to us – your family, but, at the same time, you have no idea how thankful I am that you woke up."

"And the baby," she asked, choking back a sob.

"She, uh, she didn't make it. You had a miscarriage, and you were bleeding internally. They had... they had to perform emergency surgery. You... Dr. Lee gave you a complete hysterectomy."

"Everything's gone?"

He could only nod in response, fearful of what his wife's reaction to his news would be. While he didn't doubt the fact that she would mourn the loss of their child, he also knew that she would mourn the loss of her ability to bear children. Whether another baby was a feasible option for them or not, at least she had still believed it was physically possible before the miscarriage. Plus, he had read quite a bit about how, after such a procedure, women oftentimes felt incomplete, as though they were not feminine enough anymore. It didn't matter if he found such notions to be ridiculous; what mattered was how Elizabeth would react and how she would feel about herself, about her body.

But those concerns they would tackle later; right then, in that moment, the death of _their daughter_ was first and foremost on both of their minds. Jason didn't have to ask his wife what she was thinking about to know why she was upset and crying. So, when the tears started to flow swiftly despite her best efforts to stem them, Jason climbed up onto the bed with her, effortlessly lifting his wife and then settling her on his lap as they both stretched out together on the narrow, stiff mattress. He held her tightly, hoping that his presence would lend her some sort of peace, a smidgen of comfort. After all, that's what she offered him by being near.

After several moments, Elizabeth whispered, "I knew she was a girl. I could just... sense her, you know." In response, he merely nodded, holding her closer and kissing her bare shoulder where her loose hospital gown had slipped down. "I'd, uh, I'd like to do something for her – maybe not a grave because I was only three months along, but a tree in the park or a bench in the cemetery, something that will offer comfort to other people who have lost loved ones."

"Anything you want," he promised her.

His wife surprised him then, though, by taking a deep breath. "So, I guess that leaves us with only one thing left to discuss." Confused and baffled, Jason simply remained quiet, unsure of what she felt they still needed to talk about. Eventually, Elizabeth twisted around in his arms to face him, though she still remained in his lap and firmly held in his embrace. "Joy," she answered his unvoiced question. "We need to talk about... your daughter."

"Don't call her that," he ordered, begged, requested. "And don't worry about her either. She's gone. Out of our lives. I'll... I'll pay for her tuition, help her out financially, but she's not my child. I don't remember her conception, I've never been a part of her life, and, now, after what she's done to you, to _our daughter_, and to _our family_..."

"Jason," Elizabeth interrupted him, tilting her head to the side and observing him closely, tenderly. "It wasn't Joy's fault... what happened to me. I mean, don't get me wrong, when I think about how she lied to us for nearly a year, I see red, but, at the same time, she didn't cause me to have a miscarriage. I lost our baby because of me, because of my body, because it was inevitable. Dr. Lee told us years ago that I'd never be able to have another child, but I didn't listen to her. If I would have, we'd never have had to go through this loss, this pain, this grief.

"As for Joy, even if it was Jason Quartermaine who conceived her, she is still – biologically – your daughter. I'm not going to tell you how to handle that, how to deal with her sudden appearance in your life, but we do need to acknowledge her connection to you... and to Jake. If anything were to ever happen to her, medically speaking, there's a good chance she would need you or our son. And I know this is going to sound terrible and I shouldn't even put the idea out there but, for the same reason, if anything were to ever happen to you or Jake, we then might need her. Plus, whether she lied to us or not, she's all alone in the world. You – Jason Morgan, whether you feel a connection to her or not, are her only living family member."

"I don't know if I can do this," he admitted, hating to confess such a weakness but knowing that, if anyone was strong enough to support him, it was his wife.

Honestly, she replied, "I don't know if I can either, but we're getting ahead of ourselves. For now, all we need to do is talk to her. Listen to her. Find out why she did what she did and what she wants from you, from our family."

"And then?"

Elizabeth shrugged, turning back around and snuggling down even further into his embrace. "We'll figure it out. Together."

!

_A Few Days Later..._

Letting himself into his home, Jason bypassed the mess that was their entranceway and continued in to the living room. (He had insisted that it be completely remodeled so that Elizabeth didn't have to see her miscarriage every time she walked into their house... so that _he_ didn't have to see her losing _their daughter_ every time he entered his own home.) Just as he had left her an hour before, his wife was curled up on the leather couch, anything and everything she might need to remain entertained and relaxed spread out before her on the coffee table. Needing to be near her, he quickly crossed the room, picked up her feet, and sat down, allowing her legs to drop comfortably upon him lab.

"The boys," he questioned, glancing around despite the fact that the lack of noise told him they weren't close.

"They're upstairs... in the laundry room of all places... actually washing, drying, and folding clothes. Just what exactly did you threaten them with to get them to behave like pod-children?"

Jason grinned sheepishly. "It wasn't exactly a threat. More like a promise," he hedged, not wanting to admit to what he had bribed their kids with.

Seeming to sense the fact that she wouldn't like his answer, Elizabeth mumbled, "never mind. I have a feeling I don't want to know." Changing the subject, she asked, "what about Joy? Did you set up a time for us to talk with her?"

Shaking his head no, he answered, "she's gone."

"Yes, I know she said she was leaving, but she was talking about the gallery, our..."

"No, Elizabeth," he interjected, correcting her, "she's _gone_... as in she dropped out of school, gave up her scholarship, and moved out of her dorm. No one has seen her since that day."

"She just... left?"

"She said she was going to, but, at the time, I really hadn't thought she meant it," he confessed. "I thought she was just telling me what I wanted to hear, and, truth be told, I really wasn't paying that close of attention. I mean, you were in a coma. You had just lost _our_ baby. I wasn't sure if you were even going to make it, and I couldn't handle dealing with her as well at the same time."

"But I'm awake now, I'm okay, and we need to deal with this. You know what this means, right," his wife prompted him. When he didn't say anything, she continued, "you have to find her, Jason; you need to find Joy."

If only she meant the emotion and not Jason Quartermaine's daughter...


	5. Chapter 5

**Part Five**

**Prompt #10: Even before Christmas has said Hello, it's saying 'Buy Buy.'  
**_**~ Robert Paul**_

She missed her husband.

Whether it was her own fault or not that he was gone... and had been gone for what felt like a lifetime apart but was actually only a few weeks, Elizabeth didn't care in that moment. It was Christmas Eve, she was lying in their bed alone while the boys slept contentedly down the hall, and she wanted the man she loved. The night just hadn't been as special, as fulfilling without him.

Oh, she and the kids had stuck to their usual Christmas Eve routine – church, then the hospital's holiday party, and then Kelly's for hot chocolate before going home. Once at home, Cam and Jake had gone up to bed while she pattered around the house, pretending to be performing little odds and ends jobs while waiting for her kids to fall so deeply into slumber that she could begin her real duties... those of Santa Claus. Once she was reassured that they wouldn't wake and catch her in the act, Elizabeth started to pull out the presents that were hidden in the basement, arranged them under the tree and in the boys' stockings, and then ate a few cookies before going to bed. Despite the fact that everything had gone off without a single hitch, it had felt as though something were missing, and she knew exactly what that something or, more precisely, someone was: Jason.

At least, he had promised her – and her husband always kept his promises – that he would be home in time to open gifts with the boys on Christmas morning. He was off chasing down yet another lead on Joy, one that, despite the fact that she was the one insisting that they find the girl, Elizabeth had a feeling would be a bust, a dead end... just like all the others before it. While Jason had been hunting down his daughter's friends from high school, checking to see if Joy was staying with any of them and questioning them to find out if they knew where she might have gone, it was obvious that, despite being a smart and beautiful young woman, Joy had kept herself very closed off from her high school chums. While she was friendly, she wasn't clingy or one of those people who insisted that everyone keep in contact with her after they all left for college. So far, with every contact Jason met with, they just seemed to get further and further away from finding her former assistant.

And Elizabeth wasn't sure how she felt about that.

She was honest enough with herself to admit that their lives would be much easier if Joy stayed gone for forever. At the same time, though, she knew that Cam and Jake missed their friend. Usually, kids forgot about people rather quickly... at least, that had been her experience with her boys up to that point, but they asked about the pianist every day, wanting to know when she'd be back from 'her trip.' Though neither she nor Jason had told the kids such a story, Cam and Jake having come to that conclusion on their own, they hadn't disabused them of the idea either. When or if Joy came back into their lives, they would have more important things to explain to the boys than where she had gone off to and why.

And then there was Jason to consider. Of anyone in their family, Joy's revelation had affected him the most. While she simply could have expected her husband to immediately come to terms with the fact that he had a child he absolutely could not remember conceiving and deal with the new addition to his family, Elizabeth knew that Jason was too much of a linear thinking man to adjust to the news of his daughter that quickly, that easily. In his mind, Elizabeth's miscarriage would always be associated with the moment he found out that Joy was his daughter. No matter what she told him against such a notion, Jason saw the world in absolutes, in black and white, and, for him, there was no such thing as coincidences. Timing was everything, and Joy's had sucked.

Plus, there was the fact that he had always and probably always would buck forced emotional constraints. Jason loved because he wanted to, because he felt that the people he cared for deserved his affections; he didn't love someone simply because he was told that he should. That was one of the reasons why he had struggled with his relationships with the Quartermaines for so many years, so Elizabeth knew that she couldn't expect her husband to immediately fold Joy into his heart simply because the young woman told him he was her biological father. It would take time for Jason to come to appreciate the college student, time that, if they didn't find her, he would never have. And the hardest thing was that she knew, without her help, the two of them would never open themselves up enough to trust one another.

Looking back, Elizabeth recognized a hesitancy in their relationship even before the truth had been revealed. Joy had been skittish around Jason. While she had merely dismissed it out of habit – after all, she might have known the truth about Jason, but the rest of the world did not see him as a kind-hearted, warm, generous, and loving man, now, though, she recognized Joy's emotional distance from Jason as a defensive strategy. Because she and the boys were just mere strangers, it was easier for Joy to trust them with her heart, but Jason, before she even met him, had already meant something to the young woman. He was her father, whether she knew him or not, and, if she tried to form a connection with him and he rebuffed her or they didn't get along, then that would hurt so much more than just a random rejection.

On her husband's part, Elizabeth realized that Jason had been wary of Joy because of how quickly she and the boys had grown attached to her. Because he couldn't connect with people that quickly himself, he was suspect of those who could and the relationships which formed because of those fast connections. Plus, a part of her wondered if Jason had been able to unconsciously sense something about his daughter. No one could argue with the fact that he had impeccable instincts. Just maybe that sixth sense of his had kicked into gear around Joy, alerting him to something that he needed to pay attention to but not revealing enough insight in order for Jason to pinpoint his uneasiness around the young woman.

Whatever the reason, though, their family certainly had an uphill battle before them. Not only were she and Jason still dealing with the ramifications of her miscarriage, but, now, they had a daughter from his past to find and get to know. Decisions had to be made about just what kind of relationship Jason and Joy wanted to have with one another, what kind of relationship she and the boys wanted to have with Joy as well. Plus, they still had to figure out a way to break the truth to Cam and Jake. While Elizabeth had absolutely no doubts that she and her husband would tell their sons that they had a sister, because of their ages, it was going to be a rather delicate subject to broach.

Rolling from her back to her right side – she had been tossing and turning all night, every night for the past three weeks since her husband had started what was turning out to be an entirely fruitless mission, Elizabeth tried once more to get comfortable. Although she was facing Jason's side of the bed and using his pillow, nothing could compare to the security and comfort that came from having her husband beside her at night. Despite his less than orthodox career, there had been very few evenings during their marriage when he had been away from home, so, when he actually was, she missed him keenly. The fact that it was Christmas Eve just made it that much more difficult to be without him.

The sudden shrill ring of their home phone caught her off guard, making Elizabeth tense and then scramble haphazardly across the wide, king-sized bed, eagerly reaching for and picking up the cordless handset without taking the time to look at the caller i.d.. Though Jason would chastise her for such hastiness, due to the time – it was twelve-fourteen in the morning, she knew that he was the only person who could be calling. Without offering him a proper greeting, she immediately said, "please don't tell me you're going to be late tomorrow morning, Jason. You promised." Despite her best intentions, Elizabeth could hear the pleading note to her own voice, and winced at how needy she sounded.

But her self-annoyance quickly melted into fear when the line remained quiet. Nothing was said in return, but, distantly, she could hear someone breathing, almost erratically, on the other end. Images of the past – gun shot wounds, stab wounds, soot and ashes from a fire, bomb trauma - flashed through her mind, and she would have collapsed if she hadn't already been sitting. Still, though, panic started to set in. "Jason, what's wrong? What is it? Are you hurt? Where are you? I'll send some of the guys, or I'll come myself. I don't care. I just need to make sure that you're..."

Her words trailed off when the caller sobbed openly. Though it was quiet and muffled, there was no disguising the fact that the voice was distinctly female. Despite the fact that it meant someone else was hurting, Elizabeth sighed in relief. Jason was okay... as far as she knew.

"Whoever this is, I can't help you unless you tell me what's wrong."

Though she had meant to reassure the other person, her words simply made them cry harder, but the raw sounds of grief, of sorrow, of agonizing, gut-wrenching pain were familiar to her; they struck a chord. Realization surged through her. "Joy," she tentatively asked, not wanting to scare the young woman into hanging up but also needing her to do and say more than just cry if she were to actually help her. But by acknowledging who she was talking to, Elizabeth just seemed to exacerbate the student's tears.

Trying once more, she spoke softly, soothingly in the hopes of reassuring her husband's missing daughter. "Just tell me where you are, Joy, and I'll come and get you. Jason's out looking for you right now, but... just, please. Let me help you."

"Everything," the girl whispered dejectedly, barely able to speak past the emotion. "It's all gone."

"What is," Elizabeth asked her patiently.

"All my pictures, all my mother's jewelry... they took it – every last thing I had left to remind me of her."

"Who took it," she inquired, hoping that maybe the identity of the thief would give her some clue as to where Joy was.

Sobbing, the younger woman admitted, "I don't know. Probably someone else from the shelter."

"The shelter? Joy, where are you?"

But her questions went ignored. "I knew it wasn't safe, but I had nowhere else to keep my things. They just... they took my entire suitcase, my life. Everything that I owned was in there – my memories, my clothes, my few books, the money I had saved from working for you, the money that I was going to use when I got a job to rent a small apartment. I shouldn't have left. I shouldn't have gone outside to take a walk. It was stupid, and I knew better, Elizabeth; I knew better!"

"Joy, everything will be alright," she told her slowly. "We'll file a police report. Chances are that the people who stole your bag just wanted your cash. They'll dump everything else somewhere, and someone will stumble across it and turn it in." Though she really didn't have that much faith in society, Joy didn't need to hear harsh realities in that moment; she needed comforted. She needed reassured. She needed to be mothered. "But, first, you need to tell me where you are. It's time to come home, Joy."

As the young woman started to recite the address of the shelter where she was staying in New York City, Elizabeth scrambled to find a pen and paper in her bedside drawer. What she ended up with was a crayon and a magazine, but the unconventional note taking tools worked, and, two minutes later, she was dressed – hurriedly so – and rousing the boys enough to put them into their coats, gloves, hats, and boots before loading them into the car.

It was twelve-thirty in the morning on Christmas Eve... or, actually, Christmas Day, Jason was due home sometime later that morning, and his daughter was waiting for her more than five hours away in New York City. It was going to be a long, tense night.

!

So far, they had been in the car for over three hours on their way back to Port Charles, and neither she nor Joy had yet to say anything to each other. Silently, the young woman beside her had cried continually since she entered the warm, comfortable vehicle. Elizabeth wasn't sure if Joy was stifling her emotions so that she wouldn't wake the boys who were sound asleep in the back seat, or if she was simply too embarrassed by her outward display of emotion to weep audibly. Whatever the reason for the stillness, though, she found it unnerving. But, still, whether it was stubborn and immature or not, she refused to break the quiet. After all, it was Joy who needed to explain herself. Petulant or not, Elizabeth knew she had done absolutely nothing wrong when it came to her husband's daughter.

And then there was the fact that she couldn't get the images she had seen of the homeless shelter out of her mind. It was one thing to be aware of the fact that there were those who were less fortunate in the world. That's why she and Jason were both adamant about donating to charity, why she impressed upon her children how important it was to be generous towards others. But it was a whole different matter to be faced with the ugly truth of the world. When she thought about people without homes, it was always of citizens from far-off, third world countries. Everything in the media was so centered upon helping other nations; she had forgotten that there were those in her own life who needed help sometimes, too. So, it had been bad enough to see Joy in such a hopeless, downtrodden place, but there had been children there – helpless, precious children who did absolutely nothing to deserve or end up without a place to go home to.

Lost in her own thoughts, twenty, then fifty, then an hour and forty-five minutes more slipped by. Still, Joy remained mute, and, still, Elizabeth brooded over the innocent faces she knew she wouldn't be able to forget anytime soon. It wasn't until they passed the 'Welcome to Port Charles' sign, the sun having long since been up and glaring off the glittering white snow lining the trees, fields, and lawns that they passed on their drive, that the younger woman finally cleared her throat and started to speak. Though she didn't interrupt her, Elizabeth carefully checked her rearview mirror to make sure that the boys were still asleep. Though it was obvious Cam was dead to the world – his little mouth was open slightly, his head tilted back as he snored softly, she wasn't so sure about Jake. He slept more like his father – serenely yet capable of waking up instantaneously, and he was also more aware of the tensions around him, more observant. She wouldn't put it past him to pretend to be asleep in order to get to the bottom of what was happening inside of his family. However, at the same time, she didn't stop Joy from talking either.

"Are you okay?"

"If by okay do you mean will I live, then, yes, but, if by okay do you mean am I alright with what happened, no," Elizabeth answered honestly, shrugging before briefly meeting her former assistant's gaze and smiling sadly. "I don't think a mother is ever okay with losing a child."

"I'm sorry for that, you know," Joy responded, ducking her eyes and fiddling with the gloves she held in her lap. "For everything."

"You're old enough to realize that sometimes sorry just doesn't cut it, but, with that said, I don't blame you for my miscarriage, Joy. I'm mad at you for lying to me, for using me, for using my children."

"It wasn't supposed to be like that," the pianist quickly defended herself, her voice rising slightly. Calming back down, she explained, "yes, when I applied for the job in your gallery, I did so because I wanted to feel my father out, get to know him without actually having to confront him, but I never meant to care about you and to get you to care about me. I'm not a malicious person; there wasn't some big, deceitful plan."

"When you realized that I genuinely liked you, when we started to become friends... more than friends, why didn't you tell me the truth then? I would have understood, Joy; I would have gone with you to Jason. I would have helped you form a relationship with your father, but now..."

Her words trailed off, but Joy immediately picked up the thread of their conversation. "I was scared," she admitted softly, wretchedly. "It happened so quickly... growing close to you, and, before I knew or understood what had happened, you had become like a mother to me, and I was afraid that, if you found out the truth, you'd want nothing more to do with me. You'd take the boys away from me, you'd fire me, but, most importantly, you'd take yourself away from me."

"So, you lied," Elizabeth summarized, "and, now, not only did you lose everything, but I lost my baby as well." Before the young woman could protest, she continued, "whether it was your fault or not, Jason can't separate my miscarriage from your revelation, and, in his eyes, you – his daughter – are to blame for taking away his other daughter... with me."

"Do you think he'll ever be able to forgive me?"

"There's an expression – I'm sure you've heard a variation of it before – that goes with every great joy comes great sorrow. Whether Jason can see it right now or not, whether any of us can see it right now, you coming into our lives is a joyous thing. We just need to get past our sorrow first before we can see that for what it is – before we can see you, Joy."

She just hoped that they were all strong enough to do so.


	6. Chapter 6

**Part Six**

**Prompt #12: At Christmas, all roads lead home.  
**_**~ Marjorie Holmes**_

She and the boys entered the house in one straining push, Cam and Jake eager to see their presents stacked up beneath the tree in the light of day, and Elizabeth anxious to see her husband. Joy, however, remained timidly outside, her feet shuffling back and forth across the ice-slick, snow dusted front porch. Even with the door left wide open for her to follow, the younger woman hesitated, even going so far as to refuse to meet Elizabeth's eye.

"You, uh, redecorated, huh," she commented softly, nervously. As always with her former assistant, Joy tugged on her earlobe in her agitated distraction.

She responded truthfully, refusing to lie even if a falsehood would have made the other girl feel more comfortable. "Jason insisted."

Before she could say anything more, though, Joy hooked a thumb over her shoulder. "Listen, it's Christmas morning. I know the boys are excited, and I don't... I don't want to ruin the day for them... or you. So, I think I'm just going to take a walk."

"But what about breakfast," she wondered out loud. "Surely, you're hungry, and I'm going to make pancakes. You'd be more than welcome to join us. Plus, it's cold out, and..."

Her words trailed off, and she cringed inwardly at just how very insincere her requests had sounded. While she was glad that Joy was no longer staying at a homeless shelter, she wasn't quite ready to just open her own home up to her yet at that point. Plus, whether the holidays were a time for giving to others or not, Elizabeth was selfish enough to recognize her own need to spend the morning with just her family. Someday, she believed that Joy would be part of that unit, but she wasn't ready for that yet, Jason certainly wasn't, and a part of her felt that even Joy would have been uncomfortable with such an immediate, forced connection.

In response, the younger woman shrugged. "I still have a few bucks in my pocket... enough to buy a cup of coffee and a donut. That is, if there's any place open around here on Christmas day."

"Kelly's," she answered. "Kelly's will be open. They never close. Someone always needs a warm meal, and the owners recognize that."

"Right," Joy remarked, nodding her head in that empty sort of way people did to fill a silent, uncomfortable void. "So, like I said, I'll get something to eat and take a walk... in the park, I think. And I'll check in later, too, before going back to campus and seeing if there's anyone still around for me to crash with."

"If not, we'd be happy to... find you a room somewhere," Elizabeth offered, feeling terrible that she couldn't open her home up to her husband's daughter. Not yet.

But Joy didn't seem insulted and certainly not expectant. Rather, she just shrugged, the gesture meant to express that they would see what happened when the time came. It was weird that, in retrospect, Elizabeth felt like she knew so little about the girl standing before her, but, at the same time, she knew her well enough to read even her most vague of expressions and movements.

"Merry Christmas, Elizabeth, and thanks... for coming to get me last night."

She smiled her own appreciation. "Thanks for being brave enough to call me. And Merry Christmas to you, too, Joy."

With that, she quietly shut the front door, finally shivering when the house's temperate air reminded her of just how very cold it was outside. "Boys," she yelled into the living room where she knew her children were gathered and waiting for her impatiently. "Do not even think about touching those presents. And that especially means no shaking them, Cameron," she added as an afterthought. "I'm just going to run upstairs, get dressed, and wake up your dad. He got in early this morning, so he's probably still asleep. As soon as we come back down, we'll have breakfast, and then we'll _finally_," she teased them, grinning at the sounds of their whining coming from the other room, "open your gifts."

Before they could respond further, she kicked off her boots and started up the stairs, unwinding her scarf, pulling off her gloves, and unbuttoning her winter coat as she went. By the time she reached the open doorway of the bedroom she shared with her husband, her various cold-weather garments had been removed, and she tossed them sightlessly onto the floor beside her closet. Raking her hands through her tangled, messy curls, Elizabeth started to debate whether or not the boys possessed enough patience to wait for her to shower before she woke up their dad.

"She's okay," her husband's voice asked from behind her, making Elizabeth jump, startled. Holding a hand over her chest, she turned around to meet his worried, torn gaze, and her heart broke.

Jason was so conflicted over everything he felt for Joy. Whether the rest of the world saw it or not, underneath the rough, gruff exterior he presented to everyone else, no one had a warmer, more gentle heart than the man she loved, but, maybe perhaps because of how truly sensitive and caring he was, Jason kept his heart equally as shielded and protected. It took a lot to break down the defensive barriers he erected around his feelings, but, once someone did, they were usually in his life for good. When her husband loved, he loved for forever. That's why he was such an amazing father.

At the same time, though, Joy had lied to him, had lied to _all of them_, and trust was as essential to Jason as breathing was. Without trust, in his eyes, two people had nothing together. So, not only did Joy have to contend with the fact that, in his mind, she would forever be associated with the death of the daughter he shared with Elizabeth, but she also had to prove to him that she could be trusted. And that would take time, a long time, and it would also require Jason taking the risk of giving someone a second chance. To say that first impressions with her husband were important was like saying she sort of liked to draw.

"Joy's going to be alright," she finally answered him, taking a seat beside him and, without thought, reaching for one of his hands and entwining it with one of her own. "She's going to need our help, though. I thought we'd start by talking to the university on her behalf, maybe see if we couldn't get her scholarship reinstated. And she's going to need a new job. I don't... I can't work with her again, at least not right now, but she has nothing, Jason, and you know as well as I do that anyone who is your daughter biologically is never going to accept handouts... even from her father."

Although he still cringed at the mentioning of their familial connection, he didn't deny that they were related or ask her not to refer to Joy that way. It was an improvement, Elizabeth thought, a step in the right direction. "And I heard you say something about a hotel. So, I take it she won't be staying with us then?"

"No, I didn't think that would be... wise, at this point. Everything's still too raw... for all of us. While this isn't something we can sweep under the rug, at the same time, it isn't something that can be rushed either. It'll take time, time we wouldn't have if we skipped ahead fifty steps and had her move in today."

"I'm glad. Thank you," he whispered. By the slight crimson tint to his ears, Elizabeth knew that her husband was embarrassed by his fear of having a daughter he didn't know, that he didn't remember, but, in her mind _and heart_, he had every right to feel any way that he wanted to. They were all in an impossible situation - Jason most of all, and it was going to take some adjustments and compromises on all their parts. "And you," he caught her off guard by inquiring, though his worry for her shouldn't have come as a surprise. That's just how Jason was – always putting others before himself, especially her. "Are you okay?"

Dropping her head to rest upon his shoulder, she exhaled bitterly. "Oh, Jason, it was so... devastating! To see people living like that and realize that, if one or two things changed, that could be us, or our friends, or one our neighbors..." Her words faded away as she thought back to all those faces – especially the little ones - she had seen while waiting just a few minutes for Joy to put on her coat and get ready to leave the homeless shelter. "There were kids there," she confessed, unable to stop the emotion from surfacing in her voice and nearly choking her. "Little boys Jake's age, a little boy with Cameron's curls but eyes more jaded and haunted than any adult's I've ever seen, and so many little girls, Jason – daughters someone, at some time, had wanted so much, but now..." Just as his arms came up to wrap around her tightly, she shrugged away from his embrace, not because she didn't want to be close to him but because an idea crashed into her mind with a force that nearly sent her spiraling dizzily out of control. "I want to adopt them," she announced confidently.

"You want to adopt one of the homeless children you saw," he reworded her statement into a question, obviously taken aback by her hasty decision. Only it wasn't. While it wasn't something that she had been thinking about for a long time, it made so much sense to Elizabeth that she wondered why she hadn't thought of it before. Maybe she couldn't _physically_ give birth to another child, but that did not mean that she couldn't become a mother again, and there were so many children in the world, in the United States, in the state of New York, hell even in the city of Port Charles that needed a good home, and they could do that; she and Jason could give many children a good home.

"No, I want to adopt all of them," she exclaimed, laughing joyfully. "We have the resources and a house that's big enough for our own traveling band... like the Partridge Family."

Standing up, Jason advanced towards her, grinning crookedly. "I have no idea what you're talking about, and I think adopting all the homeless children in New York could be slightly more challenging than you think at the moment, but I do agree that looking into our options is a good idea, but one child at a time, Elizabeth," he warned her tenderly. Kissing her forehead, though, he became more serious. "I think there's something I need to do first." Taking a deep breath and releasing it in a loud, quick gush, he added, "I need to find Joy, and I need to talk to her."

Leaning up on her tiptoes, Elizabeth took her turn at kissing him. However, she landed her embrace upon his lips. Pulling away, she said, "she's in the park. You go. I'll make a breakfast so complicated and time consuming that it'll take the boys at least twenty minutes to scarf it down. Just come back soon, okay? They're not going to wait forever to open their presents, and I'm not going to allow them to even touch those gifts until you're sitting in that living room with us."

The last thing she saw before he left was his smile, the one Jason reserved only for her.

"Boys," she called out to her sons. "How about homemade sticky rolls for breakfast?"

!

She watched as Jason - _her father_ - shoved his glove-less hands into his jeans pocket and wondered if, unlike the rest of the world, he wasn't bothered by the near sub-zero temperatures found in upstate New York during that time of year. The fact that his leather coat was unzipped and that he had nothing on underneath the jacket but a thin, flimsy t-shirt further supported her thought. Instead of asking him about it, though, she questioned, "how did you find me?"

"I just... did," he answered. Though the response was obtuse, perhaps even purposely so, she understood what he meant. And that's what was so frustrating about the man. While she knew nothing about him, and he knew nothing about her, it was so very obvious that they were connected in someway. While she predominantly resembled her mother, perhaps only inheriting hints of Jason's bone structure, her mannerisms, her actions, and even her personality at times completely reflected a man that, prior to eleven months before, she had never even met. It was weird... yet reassuring at the same time, because, for Joy, it meant that, even if nothing ever came of their biological tie, she knew that, technically, she wasn't alone in the world. "Elizabeth and I, we bought that bench... for the baby."

"I know," she responded, keeping her sentences as short and succinct as his.

"How?"

"I just... did," she mimicked. Upon his raised eyebrow, she smirked. So, not only did Jason Morgan not feel the cold, but, apparently, while he was allowed to respond to questions obliquely, others couldn't when they were addressing his inquiries. At least she wasn't the only complicated one in their strange, new father-daughter relationship. "I saw the inscription on the brass plate," Joy eventually revealed, nodding towards the said label. Reciting what she had read on the bench moments before, she said, "in memory of a great yet fleeting _joy_..." It was kind of hard not to make the connection."

He nodded in understanding. "Elizabeth said that she told you we'd help you, right – with school, finding a new job, replacing some of your things."

"I don't want charity," she told him, holding up a warning hand.

"And, if it means that much to you, when you're back on your feet, you can repay us."

This time, it was her turn to nod, only in concession. "What about everything else... you know, you and me? Elizabeth? The boys?"

He finally sat down beside her and was quiet for several minutes as he considered his response. When he spoke, it was slowly, but it also lacked the usual crispness she heard in his voice. "So much about life is timing, Joy," he told her, "and yours, a month ago, sucked." Despite the seriousness of their discussion, she chuckled at his bluntness. "We'll have to work on that... together."

There was just one more thing she had to ask him before she could be satisfied with their first real talk as father and daughter. "So, you really don't remember anything about my mother, about... me?" She meant about her conception, but, whether she was technically an adult or not, she was definitely not asking her dad that particular question, at least not out loud.

"I remember seeing Keesha after I woke up from my coma, and I remember everybody telling me that I loved her, but I couldn't feel those feelings anymore. I couldn't even recall if I'd ever had them. To be honest with you, I didn't want to know anything about her or what _he_ – Jason Quartermaine - shared with her, because, no matter what everyone else thought at the time, I wasn't him; I'm still not him."

"That must have been so weird."

"Not really," he replied, shrugging. "You have to have something to base your impressions upon to think that a situation or an event is strange. I didn't have that. Frankly, what's weird is thinking that I have a nineteen year old daughter, no offense."

For the second time that morning, Joy laughed. Standing up, she rolled her eyes towards her biological father. "None taken." Mimicking his earlier actions, she shoved her _gloved_ hands into her own jeans pockets. "Tell the boys I said hi for me, would you, and that I hope they got everything they wanted for Christmas?"

"You can tell them yourself," he answered. "You're stopping by, right?"

"Yeah," she grinned. "I'll see you later, Jason."

"Yes, you will, Joy."

As they headed off in opposite directions – Jason back to his home with his wife and sons and Joy towards Kelly's where a donut and coffee were calling her grumbling stomach's name, the young woman found herself thinking about everything that had happened in her life during the past year – meeting Elizabeth, growing closer to the older woman, meeting her brother... her brothers... even if they didn't know that she was their sister, meeting her father, Elizabeth's miscarriage, and running away, and she found herself also thinking about the sister she would never meet and the bench that had been dedicated to her. While it was true that, for every great joy one experienced in life, a great sorrow would follow, that also meant that the reverse was true as well: for every great sorrow, another great joy was just around the corner. And she had to wonder if Jason Morgan – _her father_ – was her next great joy.

She could do worse.


End file.
